It seems that the culture is moving toward centralization. We are looking for one person (or one institution) to be the answer for our problems. We eagerly looking up to the sky waiting the "messiah" to come, and when we feel that we've found the messiah, we'll give our devotion to the person. Most of the times, people are lured by the eloquent speech, strong charisma that glared from the body language and, interestingly most of them were relatively fast crawling their way up to the "throne" and anything else that fits in the criterias how a messiah should be.
Hitler was a nobody during the WW I. But, using his excellent rhetorical talent, he gained people's trust in no time. His message is very simple, bringing hope to the Germans who were devastated after the defeat in WW I. Nobody was aware of his ambition to bring Germany to the top of the world was any wrong at all.
I still remember that during the US 2008 election, many people believed that Obama is "the answer." Nobody really knows him before 2004, but yes, only in 4 years everybody fell in love with him without even knowing his background and standpoints. I am not saying that Obama is the same as hitler. But, I don't want us to be blinded by the eloquent speech and forget the essential content of the speech itself.
To make it worse, usually those who follow "the messiah" are not open for reasonable debates or facts. They will just blindly close their eyes and ears for any opposition. Probably, the best way to deal with those kind of people is to be quiet and let time unravels all the glaze around the core message.
Unfortunately, in many cases it is when everything is too late, when the leader already brought them down so low and at that time they will have no choice but to stick with him till the end.
All I can say now is please don't give your trust so easily to those who never prove his/her credibility for a reasonable long period and please be always skeptical to the content and refuse to be swayed away by eloquent delivery.
Monday, November 9, 2009
What's wrong with the world??? Part 1
Event 1: I was reading the article in Economist. It basically says that European Union is in process to elect their the first permanent president (http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14586858). The front-runners are Tony Blair from England and probably Angela Merkel from Germany. I have no problem with the individuals. However, I feel quite disturbed to know that nobody is object to the idea. How come the Spanish people (or Germans, or Dutch or anybody in Europe) feel okay to be led by a British who knows nothing about their culture, don't speak their language and more importantly knows nothing about their struggle. Moreover, doesn't it make you nervous if one person has that much authority? What happen if someday all the countries are united and led by just one person. Then, that person will be the President of World!! Regardless, he/she is elected through a democratic process, the idea for one person to lead that many people with vastly different cultures still be perplexing, at least for me.
I cherish unity but not this kind of unity. We don't have to be led by the same person to be called united. We could live differently but work on the common and mutual goal. If we position everybody to live the same way (which will happen under one leadership) it is colonization and not unification spirit. And can you imagine what are the consequences if the person becomes corrupted (which is highly probable since power could be addictive)? It is always best to share the power among many people instead of to centralize on 1 person or 1 small group.
Event 2: In the class discussion about social security (SS), the teacher points out that starting 2015, the SS revenue generated from tax will be smaller than the amount should be paid to those who are retired. Thus, economists projected by 2040, there will be no reserve in SS program left for paying the retired. Then, he asked us (the students) for any suggestion to solve the problem. One person said "It's easy, just increase the tax rate for SS, then there will be more income for SS program to finance what they are doing." Many other people voiced the same tone. I didn't say anything in the class, but during my way home, I kept thinking about the answer. Then, I start to see the fallacy of the logic.
Look, the fact that it is projected to be failed means that the government is proven to be irresponnsible and can't be trusted with our money. How could it be possible that the solution is to trust the government with more of our money????? That's crazy. The solution is to decrease or even to entirely eliminate the SS program. Let people manage their own money, if they want to have some money during the rainy days then let them be saving at their own will.
I cherish unity but not this kind of unity. We don't have to be led by the same person to be called united. We could live differently but work on the common and mutual goal. If we position everybody to live the same way (which will happen under one leadership) it is colonization and not unification spirit. And can you imagine what are the consequences if the person becomes corrupted (which is highly probable since power could be addictive)? It is always best to share the power among many people instead of to centralize on 1 person or 1 small group.
Event 2: In the class discussion about social security (SS), the teacher points out that starting 2015, the SS revenue generated from tax will be smaller than the amount should be paid to those who are retired. Thus, economists projected by 2040, there will be no reserve in SS program left for paying the retired. Then, he asked us (the students) for any suggestion to solve the problem. One person said "It's easy, just increase the tax rate for SS, then there will be more income for SS program to finance what they are doing." Many other people voiced the same tone. I didn't say anything in the class, but during my way home, I kept thinking about the answer. Then, I start to see the fallacy of the logic.
Look, the fact that it is projected to be failed means that the government is proven to be irresponnsible and can't be trusted with our money. How could it be possible that the solution is to trust the government with more of our money????? That's crazy. The solution is to decrease or even to entirely eliminate the SS program. Let people manage their own money, if they want to have some money during the rainy days then let them be saving at their own will.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Obama, meet Ronald Coase
I usually am not a kind of writer who loves dragging a topic, but I am very compelled to post an extension of the previous post about global warming. I am currently doing a small project (for my school) to think of an idea to reduce pollution caused by private vehicles (cars)and would like to share my thought here.
One of the Obama's main campaign promises was he would push more environmental-friendly policies out from the White House. One of his policies regarding private vehicles is to reduce the number of high carbon emitting cars (trucks and SUV kind of cars I guess)circulating and replace them with hybrid or other low carbon-emitting cars. I have no problem if it is done efficiently. But, again, another typical liberal kind of solution, Obama forced the auto industries that received government bail out to produce hybrid cars that nobody wants to buy (okay, maybe there are some people out there are still willing to buy them, but how many? If the market demand is there, the firms will produce them long time ago without any government regulation). There has to be a more market-oriented solution to reduce pollution from cars.
Well, Mr. Obama needs to have economic advisors like Ronald Coase. Coase believes if the property rights are well defined and the transaction cost is low, the market would define its best outcome (please refer to "Coasian Theorem"). One of the applications of the theorem is the "cap and trade" regulation that is already imposed by the city of Los Angeles to reduce pollutants from factories.
Few modifications of the Coase's "cap and trade" could be applied to limit the number of cars circulating in the congested area. Rather than trying to limit the number of vehicles directly, we could make driving a less convenient experience for the drivers by limiting the parking space. For every business buildings (e.g. office, factory, warehouse etc) will be given certain “rights” of parking space provided for their employees. One could not provide a parking space or structure more than a certain area (or maybe volume since it is possible to build skyward). Thus, for new buildings that are easier to adjust to new rules could sell their “rights” to old business buildings that are more efficient to just buy additional rights of parking rather than re-construct the whole parking space. Then, by increasing the "cost of driving cars," (by reducing the convenience points) more people will choose to take public transportation to go to work and eventually will reduce the number of private cars being driven at least during the rush hours.
The biggest problem would be in calculating the efficient area for parking space. In the real world, the benefit and cost analysis would not be as clear as the one that economic students have in the class and government is not necessarily more knowledgeable than regular economic students either. To add the matter to the analysis, the lobbyists might sway the government's decision toward their favor as what usually happen in the politics.
I know I don't have any statistical evidence to support this idea. However, I believe it is worth to consider.
God bless
One of the Obama's main campaign promises was he would push more environmental-friendly policies out from the White House. One of his policies regarding private vehicles is to reduce the number of high carbon emitting cars (trucks and SUV kind of cars I guess)circulating and replace them with hybrid or other low carbon-emitting cars. I have no problem if it is done efficiently. But, again, another typical liberal kind of solution, Obama forced the auto industries that received government bail out to produce hybrid cars that nobody wants to buy (okay, maybe there are some people out there are still willing to buy them, but how many? If the market demand is there, the firms will produce them long time ago without any government regulation). There has to be a more market-oriented solution to reduce pollution from cars.
Well, Mr. Obama needs to have economic advisors like Ronald Coase. Coase believes if the property rights are well defined and the transaction cost is low, the market would define its best outcome (please refer to "Coasian Theorem"). One of the applications of the theorem is the "cap and trade" regulation that is already imposed by the city of Los Angeles to reduce pollutants from factories.
Few modifications of the Coase's "cap and trade" could be applied to limit the number of cars circulating in the congested area. Rather than trying to limit the number of vehicles directly, we could make driving a less convenient experience for the drivers by limiting the parking space. For every business buildings (e.g. office, factory, warehouse etc) will be given certain “rights” of parking space provided for their employees. One could not provide a parking space or structure more than a certain area (or maybe volume since it is possible to build skyward). Thus, for new buildings that are easier to adjust to new rules could sell their “rights” to old business buildings that are more efficient to just buy additional rights of parking rather than re-construct the whole parking space. Then, by increasing the "cost of driving cars," (by reducing the convenience points) more people will choose to take public transportation to go to work and eventually will reduce the number of private cars being driven at least during the rush hours.
The biggest problem would be in calculating the efficient area for parking space. In the real world, the benefit and cost analysis would not be as clear as the one that economic students have in the class and government is not necessarily more knowledgeable than regular economic students either. To add the matter to the analysis, the lobbyists might sway the government's decision toward their favor as what usually happen in the politics.
I know I don't have any statistical evidence to support this idea. However, I believe it is worth to consider.
God bless
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